The State of Humanity

Rating:
Summary: Oh no!
Review: I find the reviews of this book interesting. The last few comments made on the book are on how Simon's "predictions" have been debunked. His predictions are in fact panning out quite nicley. The united states "fall" on the world life expectancy list does not mean things have gotten worse: it means more countries are improving, and some have surpassed us. This is a bad thing? Other readers point out how things just havn't panned out. Are you all on crack? In truth Simon makes no predictions in his books that aren't based of fact. Over the last 100 years things have gotten MUCH better for EVERYONE. You can argue about disparities among the races, but the TRENDS for ALL of humanity show great improvements (ie, for all races). Scoff at his claims if you will, but you are likley living proof of some miracle brought about within even the last 40 years. It matters not what race you are. If you don't like Simon, hit up the statistical abstract of the united states and verify his numbers - this is a claim simon makes. Lastly, seeing some blips in humanity, such as the adverse effects of the fall of the soviet union (again, you cannot simply say simon is wrong because the soviets dove into free market economies and are struggling, anymore than you could have said capitalism is wrong because of the recession in the 80's, or the depression before WW2; russia is an EXTREME example of how NOT to transition into democracy, hence the term use of the uncontrolled "fall" in "fall of the soviet union"). This is the essence of simons ENTIRE BOOK - that the overall TRENDS are improving. Readers who miss that miss the book. Life isn't easy every day or every year, sorry. Don't go blaming Simon for that.

Rating:
Summary: Have we PROVEN anything?
Review: I find the reviews of this book interesting. The last few comments made on the book are on how Simon's "predictions" have been debunked. His predictions are in fact panning out quite nicley. The united states "fall" on the world life expectancy list does not mean things have gotten worse: it means more countries are improving, and some have surpassed us. This is a bad thing? Other readers point out how things just havn't panned out. Are you all on crack? In truth Simon makes no predictions in his books that aren't based of fact. Over the last 100 years things have gotten MUCH better for EVERYONE. You can argue about disparities among the races, but the TRENDS for ALL of humanity show great improvements (ie, for all races). Scoff at his claims if you will, but you are likley living proof of some miracle brought about within even the last 40 years. It matters not what race you are. If you don't like Simon, hit up the statistical abstract of the united states and verify his numbers - this is a claim simon makes. Lastly, seeing some blips in humanity, such as the adverse effects of the fall of the soviet union (again, you cannot simply say simon is wrong because the soviets dove into free market economies and are struggling, anymore than you could have said capitalism is wrong because of the recession in the 80's, or the depression before WW2; russia is an EXTREME example of how NOT to transition into democracy, hence the term use of the uncontrolled "fall" in "fall of the soviet union"). This is the essence of simons ENTIRE BOOK - that the overall TRENDS are improving. Readers who miss that miss the book. Life isn't easy every day or every year, sorry. Don't go blaming Simon for that.

Rating:
Summary: A comment
Review: I have a comment for the reviewer who seems to loathe everything about Simon. Life expectancy in the U.S. just reached its historic, all-time high. It could drop in any given year, but the trend is still up. In general, Simon's analyses are still correct today (October 2001).

Rating:
Summary: Simon say "can I take a baby step?"
Review: Since this book was published in 1995 we have had several revelations which have added to its most virtuous verification that the state of humanity is indeed improving. The most recent and probably the best commentary on this subject can be found in Bjorn Lomborg's book, "the Skeptical Environmentalist". As anyone who follows this debate knows, Lomborg delved into a project to disprove Julian Simon after reading his summations on this subject. Indeed Lomborg is currently being smeared by the same detractors who have castigated Simon, the American and international Socialists on the political far Left. The simple reason for this is that both men have exposed the fraudulence of bad science, fomented on a naive public, as part of a political agenda ostensibly in favor of improving our environment.

Simon amasses the work of 54 different scholars in his effort to point up the obvious; that the health of mankind is improving under a world increasingly devoted to free markets. The critics of this thesis are unfortunately subject to the dictum that Marxism exploits the economic ignorance of man. Unlike Simon, these environmental Marxist's are generally unacquainted with the works of Adam Smith or of Frederic Von Hayek and Ludwig Von Mises. Because of this gap in the intellectual development of Simon's critics his message is suppressed by a major media in America and Europe, which is more dedicated to the Socialist dogma. However, this suppression of good news on the environmental front is slowly lifting due to competing sources of information.

Another contributor to scientific truth is Michael Fumento who's book, "Science Under Siege", recites how the environmental misinformation campaign of the critics of Simon, affects our laws, our taxes, and our daily life... This book offers useful references to the many topics assessed in this ruthlessly contended arena.

The reason Simon has met with such hostility warrants increased scrutiny. It seems that mankinds need to feel virtuous and self-important, clashes with his need to champion ostensibly virtuous, but often factually invalid causes. When confronted with irrefutable proof of the invalidity of the cause, man has a way of engaging in a colossal self-deception, seemingly with few limitations. It isn't Simon or Lomborg who are wrong, it is the misguided notion of people who desire and need a continuation of a consistent worldview, one that assures their continuing validation as virtuous, caring souls. A study of religion offers a surfeit of anecdotal testament to this truth.

I predict that the complete works of Julian Simon will soon be offered in the e-learning world of online universities. The continual thwarting of scientific fact and economic reality by the major media and the elite academy has heard its swan song; its time has come and gone. The disrupting technologies of the information revolution have sealed the fate of this exercise as just another aberrant chapter in the history of mankind's quest for a greater economic surplus for all of its citizens. Let's hear it for Julian Simon, a man whose greatness will unfortunately, only be realized posthumously.

Rating:
Summary: Simon say "can I take a baby step?"
Review: Since this book was published in 1995 we have had several revelations which have added to its most virtuous verification that the state of humanity is indeed improving. The most recent and probably the best commentary on this subject can be found in Bjorn Lomborg's book, "the Skeptical Environmentalist". As anyone who follows this debate knows, Lomborg delved into a project to disprove Julian Simon after reading his summations on this subject. Indeed Lomborg is currently being smeared by the same detractors who have castigated Simon, the American and international Socialists on the political far Left. The simple reason for this is that both men have exposed the fraudulence of bad science, fomented on a naive public, as part of a political agenda ostensibly in favor of improving our environment.

Simon amasses the work of 54 different scholars in his effort to point up the obvious; that the health of mankind is improving under a world increasingly devoted to free markets. The critics of this thesis are unfortunately subject to the dictum that Marxism exploits the economic ignorance of man. Unlike Simon, these environmental Marxist's are generally unacquainted with the works of Adam Smith or of Frederic Von Hayek and Ludwig Von Mises. Because of this gap in the intellectual development of Simon's critics his message is suppressed by a major media in America and Europe, which is more dedicated to the Socialist dogma. However, this suppression of good news on the environmental front is slowly lifting due to competing sources of information.

Another contributor to scientific truth is Michael Fumento who's book, "Science Under Siege", recites how the environmental misinformation campaign of the critics of Simon, affects our laws, our taxes, and our daily life... This book offers useful references to the many topics assessed in this ruthlessly contended arena.

The reason Simon has met with such hostility warrants increased scrutiny. It seems that mankinds need to feel virtuous and self-important, clashes with his need to champion ostensibly virtuous, but often factually invalid causes. When confronted with irrefutable proof of the invalidity of the cause, man has a way of engaging in a colossal self-deception, seemingly with few limitations. It isn't Simon or Lomborg who are wrong, it is the misguided notion of people who desire and need a continuation of a consistent worldview, one that assures their continuing validation as virtuous, caring souls. A study of religion offers a surfeit of anecdotal testament to this truth.

I predict that the complete works of Julian Simon will soon be offered in the e-learning world of online universities. The continual thwarting of scientific fact and economic reality by the major media and the elite academy has heard its swan song; its time has come and gone. The disrupting technologies of the information revolution have sealed the fate of this exercise as just another aberrant chapter in the history of mankind's quest for a greater economic surplus for all of its citizens. Let's hear it for Julian Simon, a man whose greatness will unfortunately, only be realized posthumously.

Rating:
Summary: Fortunately for Simon, he's dead
Review: The State of Humanity, published by the libertarian Cato Institute, argues that all sociological trends, on a global scale, show that life is getting better for everyone. A large portion of the book attempts to refute environmental issues - global warming, deforestation, etc. The book pays no attention to issues which are much harder to quantify, such as the health of the family, mental and moral well-being of modern people, etc.

How successful is the book? It has been four years since the book was published (editor Julian Simon is now deceased). Simon predicted that everything would continue to improve - lifespan, consumption, general health, etc. - for the entire world.

Simon's predictions have largely come true for America and western Europe. The economy is roaring, and wages - which had been stagnant for 20 years - sow signs of increasing. We have plenty to eat.

His predictions for the Third World are wrong on a stupendous scale. AIDS has reduced the life expectancy of central Africa to 39. The economic collapse of the Soviet Union has cut the life expectancy from 65 yo 53. Simon predicted that human ingenuity would always come up with ways to keep the food supply ahead of population, but Africa has failed to adopt or develop high-yield farming techniques, and there is a good chance that a Malthusian disaster will occur there.

Simon's work has always been predominantly concerned with the West, and these failed predictions re-enforce this.

The environmental sections quote studies that are favorable to the author's libertarian ideals. Other studies say contrary. These sections seem to be little more than selecting the most favorable studies to the exclusion of others.

The biggest failing of this book is that it assumes that the driving force in human history is material wealth. (History has never been driven by material wealth, because people prior to the development of a certain technology don't know what they're missing. On the contrary, the events of history have been driven by religion, culture, ambition, etc. ) To explain why the majority of people today feel trepidation about the future, Simon blames the media, which dwells on bad news.

This explanation, however, falls flat. The media has been trumpeting the glories of the the bull market since the early 90s (often ignoring the fact that the economic upswing didn't even begin to help the average worker until about 1997); most media commentators note that the media ignores serious issues in favor of Jerry Springer-style fare. Simon also suggests that human evolution has predisposed us toward bad news. This also is questionable. Most people cope with bad news through denial.

Simon fails to grasp the moral and spiritual dimensions that bother modern people. There is no question that technology has made life longer and easier. But there are numerous moral and spiritual issues that threaten the stability of society, which are too complex to analyze here. Since material wealth has never been the driving force in history, these moral/spiritual issues (alienation, isolation, family decay, spiritual emptiness, etc.), it is doubtful that technology will bring us the utopia Simon predicts.

With a stolen nuke or biochemical weapons, one of the hurting people in the world may decide to make us feel his pain.

Simon also made the questionable assertion that the general trend in human history has been upward, with wars and conflict being the exceptions. I doubt this. Simon seems to imply that there has been no wars since World War 2 (again, showing his Euro-centricness). The fact is, numerous wars mark the globe. It is equally possible to look at human history and see the times of peace and development as the exceptions (e.g., the length of the dark ages versus the length of the Enlightenment).

Rating:
Summary: Failed predictions dismiss Simon as a fool
Review: This is a book jam-packed with statistical information regarding, what else, the state of humanity. Collected are statistics relevant to life, health, standards of living, and the ecological state of the planet.

For example, if you believed Ehrlich and Ted Danson in the 1970's that the Earth was on the cusp of another ice age, only now to believe that the Earth is warming rapidly, your extreme beliefs, no doubt influenced by a media that has little regard for facts, could stand a dose of reality from the information in this book. Of course, Simon is not the only writer to debunk the eco-extremists. Dr. S. Fred Singer, inventor of the satellite ozone monitoring system, is among the large percentage of globabl scientists who concur that there is indeed nothing wrong with the ozone layer. How could they come to such a conclusion? Probably a consideration of the facts, ones such as those Simon has amassed.

Far from culling information only from the western world, the statistics in this book are often global. Of course, this is a book largely composed of statistics. Regardless of the accuracy of the information, quantitative analyses such as this are purely for reference.

I suggest Simon's book not as the end-all-be-all of rational debate, but merely as one source of information. Simon, and the information he has gathered, do not speak conclusively on any issue. What you will most probably gain from reading this book is an understanding of the kind of evidence and material that is not even considered by those who make opposing arguments. Opinions may vary, but ultimately facts lend themselves only to a finite number of interpretations.

Most cultural debates have their ebbs and flows; I am glad to see this segment of the argument being constructed with facts and rationality, however incomplete they may be.